Tech

Can Windows 8.1 Make My Wife Love Windows Again?

No, not me. I actually rather like Windows 8, especially on a touchscreen device. My wife, however, is another matter — and, for her, the just-announced Windows 8.1 can't arrive soon enough.

She shared her Windows 8 enmity when I asked how things were going with our new Asus ET2300 touchscreen all-in-one PC. I'd purchased the system a month earlier when our HP Pavilion running on Windows 8 had succumbed to heart (or perhaps hard drive) failure.

When it happened, I knew I was going to buy a Windows 8 system. I also knew that there was a 50/50 chance my wife wouldn't like it. It's not that my wife isn't computer savvy; she is, and I've had a personal computer in our shared home since 1991. What she doesn't like is change. We have owned many different PCs in the past 20-odd years, and the only thing I can depend on is that my wife will not like whatever new operating system ships with the computer. This, however, is the first time she has expressed outright hatred.

Like most homes, ours is a non-homogenous environment: two Windows 7 laptops, a Windows 8 laptop, a Windows 8 desktop, multiple Apple iPads, two iPhones and a couple of Android phones. It sounds crazy, but it’s mostly not. I do most of my productivity work on laptops and use my tablet for email, web browsing and media consumption. My wife and kids use the desktop system, mostly for bills, email and school work.

When it came time to buy a new PC, we did consider a Mac, but my daughter, a Windows devotee, wouldn’t hear of it. As I said, I like Windows 8 and was happy to get a giant touchscreen computer.

Displeasure Centers

Being the big help I always am, I first responded to my wife’s tech despair by telling her she “hated” Windows 8 because she didn’t understand it. No, she responded. “I simply hate it.”

Later, when we had both calmed down, I asked her to list her Windows 8 issues. She told me that Windows 8 was harder to use, added steps and always forced her back to the “Start menu.”

To be fair, Windows 8 is not like the Windows 7. It dumped the beloved Start button, and the new Start menu is really nothing like a menu at all. No wonder my wife is thrown by its oddness.

Windows' Start menu, for those who haven't spent time with the newish OS, is an entirely separate environment (once called "Metro," now called "Modern"). It’s like the old Start menu turned inside-out, and when you’re in it, you can’t see the still-familiar-looking desktop. It’s a huge difference and just the kind of change my wife, a very average Windows user, would hate. For someone not into technology and, more importantly, change, it’s almost appallingly different.

While the intention of the Modern Start menu is to not only make everything easy to find but also work expertly with touch-based systems, my wife views it as an impediment to her daily computing habits. My advice that she tap the “Windows button” on the keyboard and then type to find a desired app (even while in desktop mode) was met with stony silence.

She’s not a happy computing camper.

Windows 8.1 to the Rescue

Knowing my wife's issues, I thought telling her about the Windows 8.1 preview — changes I thought she'd be pleased with — would give her hope. She doubted it.

I don’t.

I’m beginning to think, by the way, that my wife’s reaction to Windows 8 may not be all that uncommon. According to Antoine Leblond, Corporate VP of Windows Program Management, the company has a "huge amount of telemetry and understanding about how people are using the product.” Even though Leblond insisted that Microsoft is still pleased with the design assumptions made for Windows 8, the telemetry clearly informed its decision to change a number of key Windows 8 attributes.

Starting with the Start button.

The dismissal of one of Windows' most iconic features pleased virtually no one, and yet Microsoft stuck by its decision, insisting that people would grow used to it. Plus, that button was, for all intents and purposes, still there — just hidden in the lower-left corner.

Hot corners are a key part of the Windows 8 user interface, and the lower-left one was reserved for a tiny popup that looks like a miniature version of the Modern Start environment. Once it appears, users can click to access the Start menu.

“We made a mistake here. Everywhere else we showed the Windows logo, but in lower left-hand corner we showed something else. Too clever,” said Jensen Harris, the director of program management for Windows.

Users like my wife, though, want to see things — easily. With Windows 8.1, they get their wish. There's a new Start button icon in the lower left-hand corner. One click still takes you to the Modern Start environment. Harris told Mashable that the change “adds some familiarity back.”

Where My Apps At?

Longtime Windows users remember a time when “apps” were known as “applications,” and that they were all a click away under the Start button. In Windows 8.1, a user setting allows access to a list of apps when you hit the Start button, instead of throwing you all the way back into the Start menu.

Mind you, the list still has that Metro/Modern look and may still appear too foreign for my wife, but I suspect she’ll also find what she’s looking for much more easily.

Another major enhancement that should ease her frustration is the new Search app, or — as I like to think of it — Universal Search.

One of Windows 8’s marquee features is the “Charms” bar. It appears when you hit the upper-right or lower-right corner in Search. Used by more than 90% of those who reported usage stats to Microsoft, it may be one of Windows 8’s most popular features, but was also oddly limiting.

Search results were always constrained to one area or another. You could run a search on apps or files, the web or system tools, but never everything at once. Now Search looks at everything, including the web.

Results are so extensive that Microsoft chose to call them “search heroes.” I guarantee my wife will find what she’s looking for, though she may be overwhelmed by all the information in the results.

Not So Alien

Microsoft did some other work to make the most significant Windows OS update since Windows 95 seem even more familiar.

It’s no longer throwing every new application installation at the end of the Modern Start menu; instead, Windows now asks where to put new apps. It has even added the option to use your “Desktop” background on the Start menu. Although this doesn’t really change that Start menu in any meaningful way, it does help make it look like the Desktop — where newbie Windows 8 users spend most of their time — and the Modern Start Menu are, in fact, part of the same system.

With those same settings, Windows 8.1 will even let you boot straight into Desktop mode. For Windows 7 users, and maybe my wife, it will feel just like being home again.

Among the many other changes in Windows 8.1, some very visible, and others a bit more under the hood. Overall, though, Windows 8.1 should be a more refined and perhaps palatable system for people who hate change: people like my wife. I hope she can hold out until the fall.

Windows 8.1 Screen Shots

Windows 8, New & Improved

Windows 8.1, which will be available to customers in the fall, includes many new features as well as refinements to the user interface. One of the updates lets you use the same background for the desktop and the modern UI.

New Live Tiles

There are two new sizes of live tile in Windows 8.1: tiny and extra-large.

Snap on Steroids

Snap -- where you have two different-size windows on the screen -- gets a big upgrade in Windows 8.1. You can split the screen however you want now, and even use Snap with multiple apps at the same time.

Global Search

Search is enhanced in Windows 8.1, which will create a "search hero" results page full of organized information from both the web and your local machine.

Deeper SkyDrive Integration

You can easily pick which files from SkyDrive get mirrored to your PC. It's also the default place to save documents.

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